Septic Tank Rules Years Away

Don't expect tougher regulations on septic tanks any time soon, says a top state Health Department official.

Donald J. Alexander, director of the bureau of sewage and sanitation, said the Health Department continues to work toward tougher regulations, but it may take two years to draft new rules.

Even then, he said, the Health Department will have to tackle the same political pressure faced by the Chesapeake Bay Local Assistance Board when it considered and then rejected stricter septic-tank regulations Wednesday, passing the issue off to the Health Department.

The proposal before the board required an 18-inch separation between drain fields and ground water in eastern Virginia.

Assistance Board Chairman James C. Wheat Jr. said he would write the Health Department to encourage them to strengthen current regulations that require a separation between 2 and 20 inches.

Alexander said studies show a 3-foot separation of drain fields and ground water removes nearly all bacteria and pollution before water from toilets, bathtubs and faucets filters into aquifers.

An 18-inch separation would reduce 75 percent of those pollutants, he said.

Although Alexander publicly supported an 18-inch separation at an assistance board meeting in March, he said the Health Department will have a tough time adopting the controversial regulations.

"The beauty of the bay thing was that the technology exists," Alexander said. "With our mandate we have to come up with a regulation that applies to the whole state" and not just one region like the Assistance Board.

In Eastern Virginia, people can use more expensive, elevated septic systems to protect ground water, he said. But those systems cannot be used in the more mountainous regions of the state.

"If you use that system on a slope, the sewage bleeds out and runs out the base of the mountain," he said.

Alexander said the Health Department will look at alternative technologies that could be applied statewide. That may take considerable time.

"We have to find solutions to the technical problems first," he said. "We're not going out there with something half-baked."

After the technical problems are solved, the political ones may remain.

Many landowners, builders and developers opposed the regulations because they feared some land would be rendered unbuildable.

In an informal study, the Health Department found that in Mathews County, 81 percent of the septic tanks would not have been permitted under the 18-inch separation rule. Other localities where large numbers of septic tanks failed the stand ard were Poquoson and Chesapeake, 78 percent; Lancaster County, 49 percent; Gloucester County, 48 percent; Newport News, 47 percent; York County, 41 percent; and Isle of Wight County, 34 percent.

Alexander said the Health Department had tried to strengthen the septic tank regulations in 1982, but was unable to surmount the political pressure. Next time, he said, the Health Department will take a different approach.

"I'll try and spend some time with the developers and Realtors and educate them about this, provide harder numbers and more data," he said.